In praise of ... street food

Indians love their food, and they often seem to want every visitor to try a bit - from relatives who pinch children's cheeks and vow to fatten them up (however unnecessary that may be) to the vendors whose cries of "chai" are heard on trains day and (interminable) night, and of course the roadside stalls that offer a seemingly endless supply of hot snacks. Sometimes it all seems too much. It certainly sticks in the craw of the Delhi authorities, who are trying to get the kitchens off their streets. Food stalls clutter up the roads, it is said, and they are unhygienic. No one could ever describe the main roads of India's capital as undercrowded, but if London's parks are its lungs then Delhi's food "hawkers" (the term may be archaic in Britain yet it lives on in this former colony) are its kitchens - sometimes literally so, for those without cooking space at home. Besides, Delhi belly can hardly be blamed solely on these providers of freshly cooked sustenance. There is also a delicious democracy in having a source of cheap food that serves barristers and bus conductors within the same lunch hour. India's army of workers marches on its stomach and the chai-wallahs, who work till late into the night, are helping to fuel the subcontinent's economic revival. But as India gets richer it also wants to smarten up its act. And so the roadside cooks are being moved into food courts. Perhaps they should move to Britain, which is rediscovering street food, even if it is in the form of an overpriced bowl of chorizo and chickpeas.